It is important for baseball hitters to identify not only the different types of pitches pitched by a pitcher but to also recognize if the pitched ball is going into the strike zone or ball zone in order to be successful.
Currently the most popular types of pitched balls include fastballs, curveballs, sliders, and changeups. Over time hitters develop favorite pitches to hit, and often find it desirable to swing only on those types of pitches. However, the batter has less than approximately one second to make this identification in order to determine the type of pitch being made.
The batter must also determine at the same time if the ball is being thrown in the strike zone or outside the strike zone and not worth hitting. Batters learning to hit a baseball need to be patient and look for a good pitch to hit and not waste a swing on a pitch that is not in the strike zone. Accordingly, what is needed is a system for training batters to swing only at strikes.
By example, a baseball exceeding about 82 mph travels at about 130 ft/sec and a pitched softball exceeding about 63 mph travels at about 100 ft/sec). Thus, the hitter as an extremely short period of time of less than approximately one second to determine if both the ball being pitched is a desired pitch (for example, fastball, curveball, slider or changeup), as well as determine if the pitched ball is in or outside the strike zone.
Various attempts have been made over the years to help the batter. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,303,241 to Burroughs describe a sports vision training device. However, this device requires components and setup that would not be desirable for regular repeated use. For example, Burroughs recommends using “plywood” boards on a pressure switch to activate the device, large painted face shields, and requires long cumbersome “cables” for being used on the baseball playing field. The use of these components would be difficult to setup, difficult to repetitively use over time for training different batters, and also would become a tripping hazard for players on the field. As such, this attempt is not practical for real world use on a baseball or softball field.
Thus, the need exists for solutions to the above problems with the prior art.